The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Mobile's been a hot topic for a while now. We know it's not something to be ignored, but when it comes to different mobile mediums, it can be tricky to determine where to focus your efforts. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Rand goes over the differences between marketing via mobile apps and mobile web, examines some criteria that can help guide your decision, and speculates about the future of the mobile world in general.

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Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat a little bit about the mobile world and specifically whether we should be investing our mobile marketing efforts into the mobile web — meaning a website that is responsive and adaptive or just specifically designed for mobile browsers — or whether we should be worried about building a mobile app to help draw in traffic and gain customers and users. I think these two worlds are actually quite different.

So I spent a bunch of time recently here internally at Moz going through a huge number of statistics, trying to gather as much data as I could to understand these two worlds, and I thought I'd share that with you. I'll give a bunch of links in this presentation, probably a good dozen of them that I'll make sure are in there.

Mobile web qualities

Just to give you a broad overview, basically the mobile web kind of looks like this.

There's a lot less time spent in the mobile web, meaning on mobile websites on a mobile device, than there is in the world of apps — far, far less time spent. But weirdly, and this is very strange but confirmed by several different sources, there's more traffic overall, meaning more unique people making more different visits, which makes a little bit of sense when you think about how those things are done. Remember that a visit to a web page is a much less intense activity than loading up a mobile app and then spending time in it. So sure that can make some sense.

It's also growing faster. So the mobile web is about two times bigger in terms of raw traffic, and it is growing faster than the mobile app world, which will also make sense in a sec when we talk about apps.

This is Morgan Stanley data. I think they're using comScore as one of their sources, and there's another one that backs this up as well.

Mobile traffic is also highly distributed, and you can see that in everyone's numbers, everyone from SimilarWeb to comScore to Nielsen. They're all reporting this. It's a lot like desktop, which again makes sense.

It's not that we spend all our time on just a few websites. In fact, because so much of the time that we spend on the web in desktop is on Facebook's website and on YouTube's website, and that is mostly app traffic in the mobile web, the long tail looks really long when it comes to the mobile web. There's essentially tons of people visiting tons and tons of different websites all across there, I think on average visiting a few hundred to a few thousand unique websites in a month across mobile browsing.

For the mobile web, search, social, and word of mouth or type in or bookmarking, those are the big sources of mobile referrals, which isn't surprising. Those are pretty big on desktop as well.

So pretty distributed broad system here. A lot of similarities to the desktop web. We're pretty familiar with this world.

Mobile app world

Mobile app world qualities, kind of different though. Apps dominate. I mean dominate like they crush the times that we spend on mobile devices. So you might have seen Mary Meeker's State the Internet Report for this year showing that mobile traffic in 2014 eclipsed desktop traffic.

Desktop traffic is weird. It basically kept growing, growing, growing from 1990 to 2010, and then it's basically today almost exactly where it is in 2010. Weirdly, I think a good trivia question would be, "Do people spend more or less time on desktops today than they did five years ago?" Of course, we would all say, "Well, they spend less." But actually we spend a teensy, tinsy bit more than we did then.

It's just that mobile has gone crazy. Mobile has eaten up all of the rest of the time in our lives. We don't see our friends or family any more. We don't eat meals. We just browse our mobile devices.

So mobile is about 85% to 90% depending on the source of time spent on mobile. It's your YouTubes and your Facebooks and all those kinds of things.

It sends and receives far fewer referrals. So basically, most of the ways that people are getting to apps is not from another app or from a website. It's directly from the launcher. They're going to their home screen. They're clicking on that app. That makes pretty good sense.

But they're also not sending out as much traffic. So if you're browsing Facebook on a mobile device, it seems like, on average, you're less likely to click on to a mobile web link and then load up a web page versus maybe if you're browsing Facebook on the desktop web, which also makes sense. You want to stay in the app that you're in. Mobile speeds are slow or especially outside of countries where 4G and LTE are common.

The top 25 to 50 apps in mobile — and it depends on who you ask — some sources are showing that just the top 5 apps are responsible for 80% to 90% of all app usage. This is data from Forrester and data from comScore. Marketing Land did some work on this.

So what we're essentially saying here is if you're not in the top 25 to 50 apps on a platform, you're probably getting very little mobile app activity, because it turns out that the long tail is nowhere near like it is on the mobile web. People don't visit hundreds and thousands of apps. They visit just a few.

In fact, the average mobile owner uses about 24 apps per month, 24 unique apps per month and visits between 10 and 30 times as many unique websites in a given month.

Seven percent of heavy app users (so the people who download the most apps, who use the most apps), they're responsible actually for 50%, a full half of all download activities.

So it's sort of a small subset of app users who just go crazy. They download every app that they can. They treat apps like websites. They have this huge long tail. But for the 93% of the rest of us, a little bit different.

Most new discovery for mobile apps comes from three sources -- mobile web, word of mouth, or app store top lists. That tends to be how we get to the app world.

So these two are very, very different. They're different in usage. They're different in how they operate. They're different in how you would need to do marketing around them.

Things every business needs to optimize for mobile web

It's my general opinion, based on what I've seen about the mobile web, that every business needs to optimize for the mobile web, and you have to optimize in a few ways. That means you must have responsive or adaptive design. It's not just an option any more.

You've got to have a mobile search-friendly experience, so being able to get the mobile search-friendly tag, which means you can rank better.

But it also means that you're delivering a better user experience from search because search is so big to the mobile web world.

You should be SEO-aware and optimize your site for search engines. That's critical. If you're watching Whiteboard Friday, you're probably doing a fine job with that.

You need to load fast, even on slow connections.

I think one of the challenges is that a lot of us assume that everybody is on 4G or everybody is on LTE. That is not the case, especially in a lot of the developing world. But even in the United States and in Europe and in other countries like Japan, there are plenty of connection speeds that are slow or limited due to where people are, particularly when they travel or are inside buildings or are having connectivity issues. I'm sure you've all experienced that.

Finally, you've got to provide that great user experience and a great content experience that delivers answers quickly.

So I don't mean just loads fast. I mean gives people the answers they're looking for quickly, because as we know, Google is using click-through rate and pogo-sticking and all those kinds of things. If you have a bad experience where you're not delivering, even if your page loads fast, you're not delivering the answers someone was seeking when they performed a mobile search, they land on your mobile web page, they're going to click the "Back" button and choose somebody else. They're less likely to choose you in the future, and Google is less likely to rank you in the future. Very frustrating.

My take on mobile app development

But mobile app development — again, this is my opinion — I think that there are plenty of folks out there who have reasonable disagreements about the way that I think about this. But based on what I've seen, I would generally recommend that mobile app development is only right for your organization if you fit a few criteria.

(A) You need to have a great strategy around what your mobile app will do and that there need to be features and value that your app provides that you could not provide well or could not provide at all in a mobile web experience. Apps can do things like push notifications, even when the app is dormant. That's very, very tough for a website to do, although Google has talked about potentially making that available in Chrome someday. So maybe.

Integration with contacts or integration with other apps. Integration with the phone features itself, the calling and the device system or the root functions of the phone. Those types of things, if you can provide value off of that that you could not do through a mobile website, okay.

By the way, the mobile web provides a lot more features and functionality than many folks often think it does. I'll link you to another great piece (What the Web Can Do Today) that was on Hacker News the other day that has just a great chart of all the things that you might want to be able to do and whether they're supported on mobile web or app or both.

(B) You've got to be able to convince not only yourself but convince your team, convince your audience that you can be among the top few — let's say hundred — apps in the world, or you only need a small handful, maybe a few hundred to a few thousand people that install your app in order for it to be successful.

If you can't make one of those claims — either we're going to be one of the top few hundred apps in the world, or we only need a few hundred to a few thousand people on our app — well, the way apps work is the rich, the dominant apps get all the traffic, all the activity.

I think it can be very frustrating to say, "Hey, we're going to build a great app that sits somewhere in the middle of the pack just like our website sits somewhere in the middle of the pack." That's not how it works. All the attention goes to the most popular apps.

(C) Your app can beat the retention curve odds.

So again, in my research what I found time and time again is that mobile app retention, it's just awful, terrible. Basically, the overwhelming majority of apps, I think more than 9 out of 10 apps will never be opened again after 90 days. So you've got to find a way to make your app retain users and keep their interest, keep them coming back to you again and again, and that is no small feat.

(D) You've got an amazing team of app developers or an incredible one or two people who can do great app development and make a world-class product.

Because if you're not going to be best in class, app world just doesn't feel like it's worth it.

This could all change if...

All right. Now let me add a quick caveat at the end of this. So what I want to say is that this world of apps versus mobile web could change.

In fact, I think there's a lot of people in the SEO world who believe that it's on the verge of changing because of what Google is doing with mobile app integration into mobile web search.

So if I do a search today for "best pasta Portland" on my mobile device, I am going to get pretty much exclusively mobile web content. That's true until and unless I perform a search that really is very app-focused or app-centric. So if I were to perform a search like "find best local restaurants near me," it might come up with Yelp or a travel destination app. Google will pull up in my results probably TripAdvisor and stuff like that. That is happening a little bit today, and we do see it. I think there's folks who are going, "Hey, this is an opportunity." It is an opportunity.

But Google has also made another change where they are now indexing content inside of apps, including in Facebook, which was a big announcement a few weeks ago, and potentially will be placing those inside of the mobile search results, potentially even if you don't have that app installed. That's the game changer. If it turns out that mobile search, which is now more than 50% of all search, becomes a place where Google does sort of what they did with Google+, remember where they were giving highly biased, preferential treatment to posts that had been Google Plussed, even from people who were barely in your network or connected to another person and they made Google+ like this center of the local ecosystem and all those kinds of things.

If they do the same thing in the app world and they give this biased, preferential treatment across the board to apps rather than to mobile web content, we could see this equation start to change. Then it might make sense to say, "Hey, even if I can't attract and keep people and build the best app in the world, maybe I should build an app anyway just to be able to expose my content and get the benefit to Google."

I think it would be a little bit of an odd move from Google, but it's not impossible, and I think in 6 to 12 months we're going to know a lot more. There'll be plenty of studies and data about the clickstream patterns on mobile search and how often the results appear and how often they're clicked and how often that leads to a mobile app download. All those kinds of metrics should be available in the next 6 to 12 months. Then we'll be able to report back to you with a lot more about whether this equation has changed.

All right, everyone. Look forward to your comments and we will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

I totally agree with today WBF. I remember crazy times in 2008/09 when market was young and people just download anything where was released from anyone. Because there was times of "early adopters" and they're just curious. It can sound freaky but there you can build app and release it without any preparation, ASO, PR, SEO and other related tasks. But no problem - you can easy get 1st place. Example - Angry Birds, Doodle Jump, FourSquare, etc.

Bit things continue to grow up and platform was changed differently. Google and Apple changed their algorithms few time and this shake whole App search results. Platforms fixes their early issues and if you remember Balmer's joke "Who's gonna buy $500 phone? people start to purchased $500 phones. Also stable platform bring "BigGuys" there like EA, GameLoft in gaming market or Adobe, Autocad in graphic apps. This happens around 2011-2012.

Today market is different. To get downloads and visibility you need to make proper marketing campaign in social media, PR, SEO and even in ads. And this is also answer why small companies will die. Because you need to make app connected to service, app that is bringing value or app that no one can clone just to survive there. I can give you lot of examples about this but will remind you about Instagram. This is perfect example. App build around service with $0 (ZERO) incomes, 11 engineers and 3-4M users that was sold for $19B. On this time in markets was circulating around 10 similar competitors with similar numbers. And Instagram just released their Android app (before was iOS exclusive) and few days later they was sign agreement with Facebook. Whatsapp was also sold to same company for $1B and before that was super popular in markets. Now funny part: both apps have spent $0 for marketing purposes. But they just find way to growth hacking for it's userbase.

This can sound so similar if you're veteran in website buildings and/or SEO optimizing. And same acquisitions happen in timeframe of dotcom bubble.

So back to today - i was saying too many "NO" these 2 years to mobile app development that you can't imagine. And most of this is because lacking marketing budget for post-development schedule. Also most of them doesn't have plans for releasing, nor plans for supporting in foreseen future. And main reason is that i refuse to make low-quality apps without giving "value". And other major reason is today users are late adopters and simply doesn't have many apps in their phones. Usual they have major apps - Facebook, Skype, Dropbox, some news, 2-3 small games and this is it. They simply doesn't download new apps. Let me give you one example - i have evaluate app for car towing services. Idea was to get phones and details of few towing companies and pack them in one app. And when you need towing, you need to open app and he will select nearest companies so you just need to push "call" button to talk with them. Sound perfect idea for them, but not for me. Because first when user need towing he need to open phone and he will type in Google "car towing in XYZ area" but he will forget about towing app. Also if user does't have app installed on phone they will not downloaded in most of cases - probably conversion ratio will be around 2-3% or even less. Other example - i reject offer for building app for small pizza restaurant in Las Vegas before one month. Don't misunderstood me - i can easy get job and make some app. But in end this app will be yet-another-dead-app-sitting-in-app-stores-that-noone-will-use-it and i have serious conversation with business owner converting him that he doesn't need this IF he doesn't have any plans for this app.

So giving them advice to build HTML5 sites with responsive design and touch events optimized for mobile 2G and 3G networks for optimal visibility in SERP and social networks. Such sites that can build strong presence in social networks and good links for backlinking for great visibility in SERP and social networks.

I know that this can sound discouraging for new app devs or business owners (SMB) but this is reality. It's much better they to invest their money in site, SEO, PPC, SMM, ORM, PR or even give them for charity than now to invest in apps. Please note - i wrote SMB and this is correct. If customer is state based or nationwide or worldwide then this advise isn't for them. Example - Starbucks, PizzaHut, eBay. Even MOZcon app is great - yes i download and use it few times. But as you can see this is different type of clients with different needs.

Maybe this comment was little bit longer, but this is how i know that market today works IMHO.

I agree that most businesses will be much better served by investing a fixed marketing budget in improving their responsive website (especially around page speed), rather than investing an equal number of dollars in building a mobile app.

The first step for any business owner should be analyzing the needs of their users:

Do you have TONS of repeat users to your website, with high frequency and recency?

Is it impossible / extremely difficult to deliver value against those users' needs with your responsive website?

Will the revenue earned from servicing your users' needs via an app offset the cost of researching, developing, marketing, and maintaining that app separate from your website?

If your answer to any of those questions is "no", then you should probably continue to invest in your responsive website.

I wrote a similar, very detailed piece with lots of stats about evaluating mobile web versus mobile apps in the context of B2B here.

Peter, totally agree with you. Working in mobile app agency in the past I faced lots of so-to-say poor UI/UX apps from devs that heard lots of how easy it is to earn money from mobile app, whether it is a game or a productivity app, you just need to build some app, release it on the app store, spread the press release or gain couple of app reviews. But, the reality is hard to accept, when completely nothing happens after it, not a single download. All the giants will steal your traffic as simply they were first in the App store long ago or already had traction in web, like Evernote, Dropbox etc. Moreover the products in series that they release, like Scannable or Food from Evernote (again) that integrates with their main product just makes it even harder not only to enter but to compete for apps, that are not that prominent.

Though, there are happy endings as well, especially for niche apps, which finds their audience and solves a particular problem for them. Mostly, these apps are for kids, medical/healthcare and small hacks, that we lack from time to time.

What I think is worth considering for the business to have an app built is to use those push notification to reach the user. As I notice lots of retail/e-commerce websites are acting like that with their offer via push messages, f.e.Lamoda one of the biggest retailers in Eastern Europe. They also use the app to provide app-only discounts and offers, as well as the goods themselves, which I think impact their app usage and retention rate positively.

I'll answer to the question asked in this WBF with a classic: it depends.

There are some niches (eg: news, B2C ecommerce, tourism, real estate, but also meta-search engines like insurance comparison website), where an App makes a lot of sense, if it is sustained by a strong branding policy. In fact, the possibility of having your app installed and present in the first screen of users smartphone (side thought: should not we start measuring the impact of being visible in the 1st screen with respect the 2nd or 3rd or into a carpet?) can be powerful, because you may become the reference site for all kind of searches related to your niche (think to the Amazon App).

Moreover, now that Google announced that it is going to index also App content, which does not have a corresponding "Mobile Site" version makes this opportunity even more interesting.

I know, still there are technical gaps like needing to create as many versions of an App as mobile OS exist and update the App asap the OS is updated too, but that obstacle is getting less painful.

However, if we consider how people is interacting online with a brand moving from device to device, and how this constant moving is affecting all the so-called customer journey, then it is also logical to have a mobile website too.

In other words, if our strategy analysis confirmed it, I think that using both App and website is the best way to be always available to your users, also thanks to the deep link opportunities

Where I still not see the opportunity for an App is for local business (eg: a restaurant) or very B2B companies (with the exception of big B2B portals, as could be an ecommerce for plumbers for instance), because in their case it can surely enough having a website able to offer a great mobile experience.

Rightly said Gianluca. It's catching up the marketing moments or reaching customers in ZMOT (Zero Moment Of Truth). Google indexing is bound to show content which are deep linked to app and this is the reason they are focusing on showcasing results from in-app contents. But, quick question here, If end users start preferring Apps instead of Google search, will that lead to decline in total search volume for Google and also lesser earning via search network ads? What do you think?

I'm super excited about web-based push notifications - I think they could be especially useful for ecommerce stores who want to reach their customers with push messages without the need to build an app.

If your customers use Yext, you should check out their new product Xone. It's a beacon system that pushes in app notifications within a range of about 30-35 feet. (It doesn't push notification to your app, but to apps they've got an agreement with once the customer has opted in.) Something else to note: you have to have that app open to receive the push notification.

Thanks for pointing that out! Lots of "app-like" behaviors are available today for the mobile web via ServiceWorker.

In fact, many of the advantages of mobile apps (including push notifications, offline access to cached content, and fast page speed) are being emulated on the mobile web with technologies like ServiceWorker and HTTP2.

Hannah I completely agree! Push notifications are indeed attention grabbing and can be extremely useful. devContact has also integrated push notifications in the support desk solution that it is offering and this has really helped app developers with better support and app reviews!

Full Disclosure first : We run PushEngage.com - a platform for Browser Push Notifications

Browser Push Notifications are much further along when this article was written. Firefox, Safari and Chrome browsers on Mobile devices now support it, and Edge will likely support it in next couple of months. We are seeing sites which don't have mobile apps, use this new re-engagement channel for them, and have postponed their plans for Mobile Apps.

Early data shows similar results for Browser Push notification as we got for Mobile App Push. The ROI over email is 3 to 5x based on our aggregate data (Data here: http://www.pushengage.com/blog/why-push-notificati...). But Push notifications are interrupt driven, so shouldnt be used for all the communication.

I believe this is the hottest topic these days and could expose us to a whole new world.

Few points I think are super important:

I would also add the importance of Voice Search initially powered by structured data in this equation as Mobile Search is going in that direction. App content is going to be fully searchable and search on mobile will be more and more conversational. Google Now, Siri, Cortana will take the role that Google homepage currently has in our browsers. Conversational search and mobile results are moving us away from the old 10 blue links.In the same way it makes sense to serve us Facebook and YouTube app results in SERP if are on mobile it will be natural to show app content from other apps.

Totally agreed that the way App streaming will be deployed into Search will define how relevant this is going to be.

In the short term, this is a space where there will be no competition, therefore great opportunities to serve both users that browse the web and users that prefer to consume content in app. As you correctly said doing a great app is not an easy job and most of the companies that don't have this kind of skills will struggle. App Indexing started in 2013 and went out from beta in 2014, still almost none is on it which makes it a great opportunity.

Speed is a key factor. App growth will come mainly from countries where internet connections are not as fast. A forecast by Ericsson shows how 2g will still be present in 2020 and half of the users will be on a 3g connection.

In my opinion, the main question here should be how often the same users return to use your product.

Apps are better for products users consume over and over again, even if only because they are easier to launch (one click away). And that logo on the phone is a constant reminder of the brand.

Yes, with websites you can make a shortcut, but people aren't used to it. Yes, you can have push notifications or rotate the screen--but people are still not used to it. They are used to doing these things with apps.

There are content based apps (such as Search Engine Roundtable) that I personally use only for the push notifications, so that I won't miss anything BIG.

On the other hand, developing Apps for companies that have their entire online presence in order to provide a onetime piece of information--doesn't make any sense at all. And that probably includes (almost) any type of local businesses.

No one will install that app, and companies should remember that developing and maintaining good apps is very expensive. In addition, working with app versions could be very annoying, as you need to develop an entire version and QA the entire app for every small change you want to implement. With websites? You can have it live within minutes!

For my company, the reason apps work much better is because of the nature of our users. Who want their live data RIGHT NOW. And we see huge differences in engagement between our apps and our mobile site. In one example, we know that an average user comes back to our mobile site 5 times a month, and around 40 times a month to our apps (both Android and iOS).

For us, the Mobile site's main purpose is to introduce new users to the product, and the heavy users download the app very quickly.

For companies whose audience is coming back very often, apps have a few very important benefits, including the fact that native apps are usually much faster, the different features that were already mentioned, having the brand a single click away, and data collection. You can collect data about your Android users in a way that no other OS allows you to, and then use it to improve your offerings.

About App Indexing, while this is HUGE, even Google themselves say companies shouldn't develop apps only for App Indexing. They say build an app only if it makes sense for your business and audience, and only then, implement deep linking for app indexing.

In recent months, Google has been making a lot of changes to app indexing, and while they are doing their best to push app developers in that direction--there's still a fundamental problem and it's the fact that users don't really want to install an app for a single piece of information. So even in 2015, 3G speed and monthly data limits is still a problem.

App Indexing is a great opportunity to stand out in search results, but it sure isn't a reason for a local business to go ahead and develop an app.

On one hand, I believe Mobile Web still wins this "battle", but we've doubted so many times when it comes to new marketing stuff that I wouldn't know what to choose as a company, cause on the other side I also think that Mobile App is the future, but gotta be careful in some countries depending on where you're investing. For example, here in Spain people is not so aware of Marketing importance so you can't make an important inversion on something you know won't work because people can't understand it's working,

Great WBF once again - although not sure on the shirt :) (do you have a local store on tap each week, otherwise your wardrobe must be huge)

For me, mobile web definitely has to be a first port of call, especially with over 50% of searches now performed on mobile, so getting your existing platforms up to scratch is the best place to start.

Once you have everything in order I think it is only worth investing in apps if you have something unique that can stand alone and as you say provide value you cannot derive from mobile web, it also needs to be something users will continue to interact with, otherwise the investment is wasted. If you are a small niche your mobile optimised site will also likely be the only place you can truly drive/advertise your app at the start to existing and new users, then it may get picked up in the search in time.

well I installed 3 Apps on my smartphone - not one more, its an android phone, so i have a lot of apps allready installed (twitter, youtube, facebook, ...) I installed:

Battlelog (Battlefield App)

Fifa Companion (Fifa Soccer App)

Search Engine Land (SEL)

I am from germany - and we have areas where LTE is not possible not even 3G. I Iive in a small village we do have LTE here since 2-3 Years (but landline internet since 2 weeks) - but every dayIi go to berlin - 60 minutes a day where I dont have any kind of internet (in a train by the way) and I truly would spend that time online if possible. It will never be possible I think. Thatswhy I don't use a lot Apps. But I use SEL - I can load at home and read in train - perfect (but for me - a lot of other people would go to the webpage i guess, but i cant).Another reason - traffic is limited - here to 100/200 MB per month. Youtube is something impossible here. Free WiFi is also something wich not exists in germany (Court & law are crazy things here - special when it meets the internet).

What I wanted 2 say: Apps wich make preloading possible and useable offline: I would use these apps. I would prefer a webpage but thats not possible. I bet germany is a country wich is not the worst in net-quality in europe.

So - don't believe we all have unlimited and fast mobile-internet here in europe - thats not true. But if we will get that, the traffic via mobile will grow more crazy than it did. Maybe we should talk about that question again - than. Maybe in 6 to 12 month it's better than now. Germany is paying a lot for "making internet possible" at the moment.

In Bulgaria i have 3G mobile internet with 5 gigabytes monthly traffic. 3G coverage is strong in whole country except in weird locations where network is 2G. But this is in mountains where there isn't vilages. And home/office is 50+ Mbps with lot of free WiFi in most locations (hotels, restaurants, etc).

"mobile internet" is for me possible in 4g with 10-20 or 30 GB traffic limit, but: it has to be used on one location: at home. Just because we don't have something like DSL here :) I live in a pretty small village in east germany, we did't had phones 25 years ago :)

I think the mobile web is the best way to invest today. Because every person uses web browser more than an app to search a particular topic not an app. No doubt apps are also famous, but as in mobile web, there is no android, window & much issues to open on any browser. allseosites.blogspot.com

As a matter of fact mobile apps dose not suits to every single business model. If Google makes changes in their search results as you mentioned do you think it would be consider that Google is pushing them to have one.

Ha! That might even be a more pessimistic view than mine, but I agree that many small and medium-sized businesses get talked into paying for an app that no one ends up using, and that takes away from where they should have focused - mobile web.

Prof Michael Porter writes about “smart, connected products”. He expands the concept of IoT and discusses how products are already connected, not only via the Internet. The market for these products will surely grow immensely in the near future.

I think that product-specific Apps will be integral part of that future.

From a practical standpoint, viewing a desktop version of a website is frustrating on a mobile device and most people seem to use their mobile devices for search. Also, it's true that everyone needs to optimize for their websites for mobile use, and this should be done regardless if you also have an app! As of April 21, 2015 (https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6196932?hl=en) mobile search officially became a ranking signal so this should take priority over creating an app.

In our experience, the best results can be achieved through the alliance of both mobile website and app. For more visualization of this point I advise checking out the table at the end of the article summarizing the topic: Mobile App vs Mobile Website

There's not much more to say that hasn't been said well by others above.

I guess if you're worried about costs vs. return when creating an app, then 'app makers' could be a viable option. Of course there are a few limitations when it comes to app makers, but a few of them are now boosting what has been offered in the past. Full disclosure, I write about app makers for a living, but before doing this I had never heard of app makers before to be honest. Perhaps some of the readers here might not have either?

If anyone is interested in having a look at some of the ones out there at the moment, feel free to check out apptooltester.com. I'm completely honest about the good and the bad with all of them, and still yet to find a 5 star maker, but some of them allow you to do a pretty good job.

In reference to what you're saying, perhaps for now app makers are aimed at the people who are happy to reach just a few hundred to a few thousand users? But they could also become a great option in the future once Google starts indexing more and more apps and their content!

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As long as mobile remains a relatively new frontier, the “mobile apps vs mobile web” question will remain a very real consideration for organizations seeking to establish a mobile presence. If your mobile goals are primarily marketing-driven, or if your aim is to deliver content and establish a broad mobile presence that can be easily shared between users and found on search engines, then the a mobile website is the logical choice. On the other hand, if your goal is interactive engagement with users, or to provide an application that needs to work more like a computer program than a website, then an app is probably going to be required.

Major #mobileapp advantage: it can notify a mobile user (e.g. about new blogpost) with a logo in the upper-left screen corner as opposed to regular blog email subscription notification which are hardly ever read. Be careful not to overuse this trick though!

But for instance, if we browse through Chrome app on mobile devices, is that considered as an App and Web usage at the same time? If so, then it justifies the difference in time spent on the Mobile Web and Apps.

I would strongly agree with Rand that apps aren't suitable for all business. In my opinion, the purpose of an app is that people can use it on the regular basis or that it provides something that a website can't. For example, how can an app bring value to a marketing consulting agency?

Hey Rand. good stuff. Awesome points, especially for those getting into mobile.

You mentioned that apps don't send out much referral traffic, which is true at this moment.

Going forward though we'll see more of this as app deeplinking and app collaborations increase. APIs are being shared in order to increase referral traffic both in and out.

Uber recently began sharing their ride API so other apps can place link to Uber through their own apps. This makes complete sense as Uber has many complementary apps. These could include restaurant apps such as OpenTable or Reserve. Broadway ticket apps such as TodayTix would be an ideal application.

Slight plug here! Or our own app Appetizr (helloappetizr.com) which tells you the best dishes to order at restaurants ;)

Great insights here Rand! This topic has been a HUGE debate at the last company I worked for. Even though their App was in the top 10 rankings within their specific vertical/category (Education/Kids Apps), it was still difficult to build a sustainable model which I attribute to your finding that that top 20ish apps OVERALL are receiving the majority of usage (and thus retention).

Your final point about beating the odds if you only need a few hundred or thousand users was right on target too. However, if your business depends solely on a mobile App for profitability, then you will have to make the most out of those few users (i.e. charging high subscription rates with low overhead costs).

Great thought provoking talk Rand. It left me with several non-SEO questions and possible implications. I want to point out one we should all consider or at least forward to our paid search teams.

Today, I block app ads from paid search. I made this call due to performance (i.e., tons of clicks, but little engagement). My assumption had been that spammers can create fake mobile apps for the purpose of click fraud, so I see poor performance for me and my clients. That's probably true, but if 50% of the use comes from just 7% of users, display ads on apps can't be very efficient (unless I am trying to market an app to those in the 7% of users). [of course, if I am trying to drive app adoption...]

Would love to know what you and others here think. Is my logic sound or am I somehow off base?

I think it is much wise to invest in both kind of marketing as mobile web and mobile app.Mobile App Marketing is much in demand and will be in demand in the next year.The App Store Optimization will increase its growth in the coming year with more rating and reviews for the apps.

Makes sense, investing in both is a good idea but most of the times I have come accross people who are more than afraid in investing an app since app development costs high and its marketing costs even higher. I would say, focusing on development and promotion of a mobile website is a better idea and when it starts generating revenue then we cal always ask them to go for app development.

But I am sure for creating an app is very difficult for small & medium businesses, because they think many times before investing money in app & App team, if they are going to invest they have doubt they won't get that much revenue (ROI), because they are not well know brand in market like amazon, ebay or like public sector news sites & banking sites...Always suggest small & medium businesses go for responsive HTML5 websites which will win win situation for them. Then Why small & medium businesses go for App..?

Many more other things are there, I saw top brands Like Mantra not succeed when they went apps only option, Few days back read one article Mantra going again for Mobile sites after losses hug number of website users... We learn one thing here Desktop, Mobile, Apps all Three are 3 different platform to target the customers & It depends upon the users How and which platform they like ....?

My Experience & calculation is telling folks are using only few top brand apps most of the time & general users are using when good offers are there & they uninstalling that I saw so-many apps where the uninstall is crossing the dally installation Why...?

Apps quality also matter, many smartphones have limited space if we installed few apps the space is over then How one user can install many apps in a limited space mobile ..? For installing an apps he won't go for buy another mobile, bcz other options are available for getting same facilities like mobile search & desktop search..Like this many more negative questions are coming...:(

Many More things are there to consider to go for a app....Kindly, Need the answer of those Why's.....?

After all Thanks A Lot Rand Such a Awesome WBF & Thanks all to participating & giving awesome tips by comments.... :)

Great WBF, Rand! Being an avid follower of Moz, I’ve always wondered if your team has any plans to build a mobile app for easy consumption of content. As mentioned by many commentators here, I tend to use very few apps and in fact, I routinely uninstall apps that I don’t use at least once in a day, unless it’s a travel app.

When it comes to reading my favourite blogs, I either get their updates in my email inbox or on Twitter. Either way, I think it would be far easier to get the content via an app. I’d installed KissMetrics blog reader app earlier this year which is currently unavailable for some reason.

As mentioned by Gianluca Fiorelli, not every business needs to invest in an app. Plus, we’re still living in the world where many websites are not even responsive to start with, just as there are a ridiculous amount of Internet users around the world who don’t have access to the 3G. Building, maintaining and updating an app for a wide range of mobile OS many not make much sense for some at this phase unless they belong to a niche where an app is indispensable.

As more and more apps enter the mobile ecosystem, users tend to give them an early shot and then uninstall them as the novelty wears off, unless of course it’s a very unique service which affects their lives on a daily basis. It’s no surprise then why sustaining app traffic is a monumental task. Whether Google improve their search algo to display apps instead of a website, businesses should still focus on building a great website as a platform for primary content consumption first as a huge of number of their potential users are still connected to a slow internet connection and as Fabrizio Ballarini mentioned, this trend will continue to be so until 2020. This is exactly why Facebook is investing in projects like Interent.org and Google in Project Loon.

Thanks Rand, I am presently working on a web application that will be out in early 2016 and I have been cracking my head on how to raise money for the mobile App, the mobile version of the application is already settled. But you have calm my nerve with this article and I will have to make publicity of Mobojoint before I can decide if the mobile app is relevant and when. Its my first time here and with the comments of experts and great minds like yours have given me some background strength to continue.

In my country mobile app seems to attract subscribers more than web app and the number of mobile apps each person uses is between 3-4. I think using a web app is more reliable than mobile app due to internet access availability.

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Glad to see someone finally address this. What I find most interesting is you spoke about how most apps downloads are word or mouth or app store top lists unlike the web/mobile web where search plays a large component in "discovery". So if you have a very good (but not world class) app user experience, you don't get to build upon that as Google doesn't give your app additional exposure like you do with web/mobile web with SEO. However if Google goes beyond their initial test to where they have many apps streamed as videos, not only will you get exposure of your content but it provides a mechanism to get your app downloaded if the user enjoys the experience. As you say, this could be a real game changer. Where today many folks use SEO as a funnel to drive registrations or transactions, your app content could then be used to drive app downloads. I think this would create a much longer long tail for mobile apps. So instead of having to have a top 100 app, there would be a world for maybe 10K or even 50K apps that drive some activity in place of the all or nothing world today.

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Thanks for sharing your views. Truly mobile is going to cover most of the searches now a days.Hence Having a Mobile app fro any business is mandatory as its is going to be one of the ranking signals of mobile searches.So in spite of having the fact that if you really want to succeed in mobile apps you need to be in top 100 mobile apps of the world.Thanks,Keep sharing

I invest my marketing on Mobile Applications ,because today way of online marketing is changed. Max people using smart android and I phone for surfing .all kind of information search on mobile app and mobile browser.Mobile Web marketing decreasing day by day .

Mobile app is very profitable for business earning and development.i want to invest in Mobile apps.and many advantages of mobile apps like:-

ImmediacyCompatibilityUpgradabilityFindabilityShareabilityReachLifeCycleA Mobile Website Can be an App!Time and Cost and Support and Sustainability.

and thanks to Rand for topic .really nice topic and based on current scenario.and i also saw rand's article he also create a video for every article .so its really beneficial for every online user.